Garth Family
The Garth family in the Great War
Andrew Pittaway, Fremantle, with thanks to Heather (Frev) Ford, Montrose.
Source: First printed in DIGGER 35, June 2011, pp39-42
Tom Garth was born in Lucknow, Bengal, India on 1st June 1867 to Matthew and Dorothy Garth. After being educated in India and England he would spend a great deal of his life in the army, serving twenty one years with the Royal Fusiliers. In March 1893 he married a Sarah Ann Martin in Woolwich, London, and they would go on to have five children. John, born on 20th October 1894 in St Annes, Alderney Island (in the Channel Islands); Thomas, born in India in 1895; Frank, born in September 1898 in Dover, England; Florence Lillian (Lily) and Reginald (Reggie) in 1902 in Woolwich, London. With Thomas in the army, the family moved around considerably in the early years, with stints in India, Gibraltar, Malta, Cairo and Khartoum and finally back to England.
When Thomas left the army the family decided to migrate to Western Australia, and they arrived in Fremantle in 1910. After their arrival and setting up the family home, Thomas took up work as a labourer, and the two youngest children, Lily and Reggie, were sent to school in Perth to complete their education. The three eldest sons found a variety of work: John took up work as a clerk; Thomas as a driver, and Frank as a printer and compositor with the Western Australian Newspapers.
Whether it was a result of their father’s military background, John, Thomas and Frank all enthusiastically served in the Citizen Military Forces. John served as a gunner at the Royal Australian Garrison Artillery Barracks in Fremantle, Thomas with the 37th Battery Coastal Artillery, and Frank with the 88A Citizen Military Forces Cadets.
When war was declared it was no surprise that the boys would serve in the Australian Imperial Force. However it was their father who was the first to enlist, with Thomas (snr) immediately offering his services to the AIF. Being 48 years old at the time, he put his age down to 42 but was still accepted as fit for service. He was assigned to the 16th Battalion AIF with the regimental number 263. On 24th September, Tom [right] was promoted to sergeant, but in December he was discharged from the AIF due to misconduct. Unfortunately nothing further is stated as to say what this misconduct was.
Thomas (jnr) was the next to enlist in September 1914, and due to his artillery experience he was assigned to the 8th Battery of the 3rd Field Artillery Brigade with the rank of driver and the regimental number 2149. He sailed from Fremantle on 2nd November 1914 aboard the HMAT Medic.
Thomas (snr) tried again in March 1915, and after putting his age down was once again accepted. This time he was assigned to the 28th Battalion with the regimental number 782 and he set sail from Fremantle on 29th June 1915 aboard the HMAT Ascanius.
John had been serving full time with the Royal Australian Garrison Artillery at the Fremantle Artillery Barracks and had been waiting for the permanent gunners to be given permission to serve abroad. On 1st June 1915, John [left] and many other permanent artillerymen enlisted at the Fremantle Barracks to serve in the 36th Heavy Artillery Group. They were then sent to Melbourne, where on June 10th 1915 they joined other permanent artillerymen who had been enlisted in the other states and sailed from Melbourne aboard the HMAT Orsova on 17th July 1915.
Frank put his age up by several months to enlist in June 1915, and was assigned to the 6th Reinforcements to the 16th Battalion with the regimental number 2298. Eleven days after enlisting in the AIF, Frank found himself on the troopship HMAT Wandilla in Fremantle Harbour, embarking for service overseas.
With the departure of his father and three elder brothers from the family home, and not wanting to be left behind, young Reggie soon took the matter into his own hands. As reported at the time by the ‘Camperdown Chronicle’:
Influenced by his martial ardour and the spirit of adventure, Reggie Garth of Clarence Street, Mt Lawley, Perth, who is 12 years of age, stowed away on the Mooltan on the 24th May, intending to go on to Egypt, but he was discovered and returned to Perth on the Mongolia. His father has just sailed for Egypt, a brother is fighting at the Dardanelles, another brother is in camp at Blackboy Hill Camp, and the third is about to leave with the Australian Artillery Siege Corps. Reggie, therefore, felt forlorn and inefficient. ‘I do not want to be out of it’, he said this morning, ‘that would be no good to a man’. He wanted to shoot something – a Turk for preference – so he set out for Egypt.
‘I was well prepared,’ said he. ‘Father had given me some money and I watched for the next boat that would leave Fremantle and I found out it would be the Mooltan which was due to leave on Empire Day. I placed a pair of stockings and a clean shirt in my school bag, and made my way to the railway station. I bought a ticket there with the money father had given me. I must have got on board the Mooltan about 2.30 in the afternoon. She left about 4 or 5 o’clock. No I did not feel that I wanted to cry as I saw Fremantle being left behind. I was glad because I was going to fight.
‘Can I shoot?’ he said scornfully, ‘Of course I can. Why, when we used to live in Katanning my brother had a rifle and I used to let it off sometimes. Well I wasn’t found out till later on that day. The steward came to me and said “Where’s your ticket?” Of course I had no ticket. All I had was my school bag and a change of clothes. A man must have a change of clothes when he goes out to fight. The steward took me to the purser, laughed as I said something. Then the purser laughed and said something to the steward. Then they took me and gave me a whole cabin to myself. I was not very sick, only a little bit. Next day they took me along and introduced me to other soldiers.
‘Col. Fiaschi of New South Wales was on board with a number of other Red Cross men and nurses. They all treated me very well. Col. Fiaschi wanted me to go and be bugler for him, and all the men said that they would like me to go with them to the base hospital in Egypt, and I wanted to go too, but the P&O Agent at Colombo stopped me. I was treated real well in Colombo. I used to live on a big police boat there and they sent my meals down from the hotel. Coming back on the Mongolia I tried to make myself useful. I cleaned all the brass work up in the chart house and used to carry meals to the cabin.’
The last that was seen of the youth was the sight of a brown figure in his mother’s arms.
(Right: Reggie Garth. Australian War Memorial Negative Number C01012.)
Young Reggie became a minor celebrity and through the war years helped the local entertainment groups performing for wounded soldiers at the Base Hospital. Fortunately, Reggie did not make it to this war, as the Garth family were to pay a high price.
Strangely, it was the last of the Garths to enlist, Frank, who would be the first to reach the Dardanelles. Six weeks after enlisting in WA, Frank [left] found himself taken on strength of the 16th Battalion at Anzac Cove on August 2nd. Three days later Thomas (jnr) also reached Gallipoli. He had been serving as a driver for the 3rd Field Artillery Brigade in Egypt and had only just received orders to join the 8th Battery in the southern portion of Anzac. Their arrival coincided with the start of the August offensive, and Thomas (jnr) was busy in helping the 8th Battery provide fire support for the various actions taking place. Frank was soon heading through the scrubby gullies of northern Anzac with the 16th Battalion as they advanced towards Hill 971. He later penned a letter home about the action:
We had been marching all night, each man carrying 270 rounds of ammunition, two tins of beef, a haversack full of hard biscuits, water bottle full, two bandoliers, two gas respirators with a shovel and a pick for digging in, two sandbags, rifle and bayonet & entrenching tool and I had to carry a bomb as I am a bomb carrier. So you can tell after going all night over hills with bullets knocking our chaps out every minute was not too sweet. When we reached the hill they pushed us up to the firing line, and then we charged. It was grand the way our chaps went for them, Ghurkhas and Australians & Dublin Fusiliers mixed. I was in the rush and saw a Turk about five yards in front. I dropped my pack and went for him but he was below a ridge about 3 feet high. I made a jump over the ridge and the bullet caught me while I was in the air and I came down on my head, my bayonet sticking in the ground. The Turk made a jab at me with his bayonet but he had three through him before he could get to me. It was grand & yet it was awful some of the sights could not be described. I had to stagger about three miles to get away from snipers and then I had to wait on the beach 9 hours.
Frank was evacuated and eventually reached hospital in Egypt. While he was in hospital he was visited by his father Thomas who had just arrived with the 28th Battalion. However, Thomas senior’s time in Egypt was brief, as on 4th September the 28th Battalion were sent to the Dardanelles. On arrival at Gallipoli they were sent to the north of the battlefield where they took up positions near the Apex and Rhododendron Spur. Thomas didn’t remain long at Anzac as he soon came down ill and was evacuated back to Egypt suffering from influenza and enteritis. Shortly after Tom’s arrival in Egypt, Frank was able to return to rejoin the 16th Battalion at Anzac.
Both Thomas (jnr) and Frank saw out the rest of the Gallipoli campaign. Thomas left with the 8th Battery days before the evacuation while Frank left Gallipoli on 18th December 1915 as part of the 16th’s ‘C’ Company Echelon. They returned to Egypt to find that their father Thomas (snr) had been invalided back home to Australia for three months rest. Thomas (jnr) remained with the 8th Battery of the 3rd Field Artillery Brigade and travelled with them to France in late March 1916, while Frank left the 16th and took a transfer to the 4th Division Artillery, specifically the 112th Battery of the 24th Howitzer Brigade. He travelled to France from Egypt in June 1916.
While the two Toms and Frank had been at Gallipoli, John Garth had departed from Melbourne in July 1915 and had gone straight to England with the Australian Siege Brigade. They were stationed at Lydd, then Taunton in Somerset where they spent the Christmas of 1915. On March 2nd 1916 the 55th Battery of the 36th Heavy Artillery Group arrived at Boulogne, France. They spent three days here and on March 7th left with their guns and travelled to Mont St Eloy near Arras where they went into billets. On March 16th 1916 the men of the Siege Brigade suffered their first casualties when the Germans shelled their billets [see DIGGER 26]. Three of the gunners were killed and fourteen others, including John Garth, were wounded. John in fact had been seriously wounded, being hit by shrapnel in the head, back and wrist. He was evacuated back to hospital in England where he remained until August 1916. John was then invalided back to Australia aboard a hospital ship NZHS Marama. Arriving in Fremantle, John was admitted to No. 8 AGH and, being medically unfit for further service, was discharged from the AIF in February 1917.
Thomas (jnr) had arrived in France in March 1916 and Frank in June 1916. They no doubt would have been surprised to hear that their father was soon to join them. Tom (snr) had left Australia with the 12th Reinforcements to the 28th Battalion and arrived in France in June 1916, where he initially went to the 2nd Australian Division Base Depot.
Frank was the first to take part in a large battle in France when his 24th Howitzer Brigade provided artillery support to the infantry at Fromelles on July 19th 1916. Due to their inexperience, the artillery fire was not that supportive and unfortunately the infantry paid the price for the artillery’s ineffectiveness. A few days later Tom (jnr) was in the thick of it at Pozieres when the 8th Battery provided fire support for the Australian infantry’s assault. The 8th Battery, as part of the 3rd Field Artillery Brigade, continued to support the infantry attacks through the Somme campaign. He would soon be firing in support of his dad, as on 2nd August 1916 Tom (snr) was taken on strength of the 28th Battalion at Pozieres. The 28th Battalion had been badly mauled on 29th July and there were many gaps in the ranks which the 12th Reinforcements helped to fill. Tom (snr) advanced with the 28th Battalion on August 4th when they captured the land near the Windmill position at Pozieres.
After its time at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm, the 28th Battalion was sent north to Belgium to recover its strength. However by October the 28th Battalion was back on the Somme battlefield, which had by now become a muddy wasteland. On 3rd November 1916 the 28th Battalion were tasked with the capture of the German trench opposite their positions. In the morass of the battlefield, the attack was a failure, with high casualties; Tom Garth (snr) being among those men killed. He had been reportedly hit in No-man’s land by machine-gun fire (and shrapnel) and his body does not seem to have been recovered. There was a later unconfirmed report of him being buried near Maze Trench at Gueudecourt but after the war no grave could be located and he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. Most of the 7th Brigade men killed in this attack lie in Warlencourt British and AIF Burial Ground Cemeteries.
The loss of Tom (snr) was a devastating blow to the family, though it is not known how soon the news was relayed to his two sons still in France. Thomas (jnr) was currently out of the line, doing instruction at the Trench Mortar Battery School while Frank was now also on the old Somme battlefield with the 24th Howitzer Brigade.
On 12th December 1916, Frank was killed by shrapnel when the battery was in the vicinity of Flers. Frank was buried between Delville Wood and Flers; the only map reference being given at the time was ½ mile south of Flers and 2½ miles NW of Combles. It seems that Frank initially had a memorial cross put up for him in Bulls Road Cemetery, but as his exact burial place could not be located after the war he is also commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.
With the loss of Thomas and Frank in the space of just over a month, the incapacity of John who had just returned back to WA, and his younger brother and sister not yet 15, Thomas (jnr) petitioned the authorities to return to Australia, as he would now need to support the whole family. He was then in hospital in France suffering from a severe bout of influenza and general debility. On 20th January 1917 he left the hospital at Rouen and was evacuated to England. He remained in hospital until the end of March 1917. Meanwhile, his application to return home to care for his family had been passed up the chain of command of the 1st Division and had been approved due to the special circumstances. On 4th May 1917 Thomas (jnr) boarded the HMAT Miltiades in Devonport Harbour and returned to WA. He was discharged from the AIF on 16th July 1917.
After her son’s return from the war, Sarah Garth moved to Tasmania and by 1928 she was living at Dulwich Hill, NSW. She died in 1943 aged 75.
Since his return to Australia, John Garth had been a frequent visitor to hospital, having to undergo several operations as a result of his war wounds. In 1919 he married Josephine Gertrude Smith at St Alban’s Church in Highgate, WA, and they would have one son, also named John. Despite the incapacity due to his wounds, John worked for the Repatriation Department and did a lot of volunteer work for Legacy. In 1929 John died in York, WA, from his wounds. His loss was much lamented and the WA RSL publication Listening Post had the following to say about John: John Garth’s work since the war, particularly in the interests of deceased soldiers’ children, is known to all returned men and to the public at large. His humanity, which was displayed officially in connection with his work in the Repatriation Department, and his outside activities, especially that with the Legacy Club, will make his loss a heartfelt one. His general kindness to sons of deceased soldiers and to the widows of the war, together with his lovable disposition, had made him a host of personal friends. Jack’s great sufferings as the result of his war service did not deter him in his humane work. Soldiers’ boys, soldiers’ widows, and soldiers, too, mourn his loss, and on their behalf we extend sincere sympathy to Mrs. Garth and her infant son. Jack Garth was a guardian and a friend to the orphaned children of the war. John was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.
Thomas Garth married Kate Campbell in Perth in 1919 and they would go on to have six children: Florence, Doris, Melvian, Thelma, Patricia and Charles. In World War II, Tom enlisted in March 1942 and served in the 1st Perth Battalion of the Volunteer Defence Corps. In 1966, living in Applecross, WA, he claimed the Anzac Medallions for himself, his father and Frank. Tom died in 1969 aged 72 years.
And what of Reggie, the young schoolboy who wanted to fight? He moved with his mother to Tasmania and then to New South Wales. In 1923 at Mosman, Sydney, he married Dorothy Isobel Peter and they would go on to have three children: two girls and a boy. Reg worked as an electrician and Dorothy as a teacher and through to the early 1930s they lived in Coogee and Clovelly, and in 1936 moved to Bankstown. Reginald was now working as a mechanic. In 1937 the family moved to Slade Point, Mirani, Queensland, with Reg working as a radio mechanic.
Reg enlisted into the 2nd AIF at Mackay, Qld, on 8th November 1941 with the service number QX18905 [right]. With the Japanese threat on the horizon, Dorothy and the kids moved back south to Launceston, Tasmania. It seems Reg served in Australia, with stints in Queensland with the AEME, then No. 4 Independent Company whose designation changed to the 2/4 Independent Company. He served with them in the Northern Territory. In August 1942 he was transferred to the Victorian Line of Communication Signal section. In May 1943 Reg was transferred to the AEME but continued to work in the Victorian Line of Communication area. In June 1944, Reg requested a discharge from the army and this was granted. Reg died in Launceston on 16th June 1959, aged 57, and was buried at Carr Villa Memorial Park, Launceston. His wife Dorothy died in Melbourne in 1960.